La tapa so as to be considered, has to be eaten between main meals as food that allows the body to hold until lunch or dinnertime.

Some authors assure that the tapa" was born when, and due to an illness, the Spanish king Alfonso the 10th, the Wise, had to take small bites of food with some wine between meals. Once recovered from the disease, the wise king ordered that in all inns of Castile's land, wine was not to be served if not with something to eat. This royal providence has to be considered convenient and wise in order to avoid the alcoholic disturbances in the body to the ones that drunk the wine, those that, hadn't enough money to pay themselves mostly a regular and full of proteins appropriate meal.
The story of the royal disease can be left apart if we rather consider the theory that іthe tapa" first appeared, because of the need of farmers and workers of other unions to take a small amount of food during their working time, that allowed them to continue the job until the main meal's time.
This main meal, with lots of fat, left the organism so busy doing the digestion that a іsiesta" had to be done for a couple of hours before going back to the fields or in the workshop. The longer the morning working hours took the less one had to do after the meal.
This snack asked for wine, because alcohol enhanced the enthusiasm and the strength, and in winter it warmed the body up so as to bear the very cold days on the fields and into the middle-age workshops. In summer, the drink to be taken in the South was іgazpacho" (cold tomato soup), instead of wine, that made bodies feel an unnecessary heat rather than the needed cold refreshment.

The snack is called alifara on northern Spain, Aragón and Navarra; and after some time, in the Vasque Country, it began to be called poteo, because the wine had to be drunk in potes (jars).

Once the botillerias( bottle-shops) and tabernas (taverns) were all around Spain, the wise King demand continued being effective. And for that reason, the glass or jar of wine was served covered with a slice either of smoked ham or cheese, with two aims: first to avoid that insects or other impurities could fall into that jar and then for the guests to soak the alcohol they drunk with something solid, like King Alfonso had advised. That was the origin of la tapa", the word of such a rooted Spanish tradition, a solid food that covered the wineglass.
And so this tapa's tradition was spread out all around Spain, even nowadays, and it has been adopted and disguised in other countries.

Not another thing but a solid tapa is what northamericans eat at lunch time, to keep on going throughout their one-sift working day and up to the early evening, and while they hold on with this light food until dinner time comes. This way of eating it hasn't well established in Europe, even though the northamerican working System has done so.
Here, the Old Continent keeps the use of having three main meals: breakfast, mid-day and evening.

The long time that goes between breakfast, very early in the morning, and the midday eating at the first hours of the evening, forces some Mediterranean countries to take a іtentempié" (snack), an appetiser or the іtapita", and let people to have time for social gathering or the change of impressions about working tasks.

The traditional drink to be taken with the tapa is wine, either іpeleón" (young and cheap) or іreserva" (long time oak-barrel brewed) wine of each region: young іtxakolí" in the Vasque Country, Penedés wine or Cava in Cataluña, іribeiro" in the Northwest, young Valdepeñas or Rioja wine in Castile and in the centre, or fine sherry in the south. In Asturias and in northern parts, where apples grow widely, cider replaces wine.

The tapas'recipes vary under the taste and gastronomic traditions of each region. But usually, olives in its many sorts are often in, as well as different dry nuts and all kind of cold cuts.
From here on, the tapa has prevailed with many other processing's, leaving most of them their condition of main food (that during the middle age and periods of shortage was completed with bread) to occupy, definitively, the condition of aperitif.

The green, Manzanilla, machacadas (crushed), gordales (big), rellenas (stuffed), aliñadas (flavoured) or deshuesadas (boneless), could only themselves occupy a book of tapes.
Together with the olives, slices of garlic or smoked-ham sausages, slices of cheese or jamón curado became world-wide known. Is the real origin of the middle-age jar's іcover" after all.
And from this secular ingredients, the tapes recipe world takes all sorts of food: meat, fish, vegetables, eggs and any other product could enter the tapes' world.

The fried ones prevailed on sauces, apart from some small exceptions: the іboquerones" (whitebait), calamaries, sausages, doughnuts, croquets, potatoes and іtorreznos" belong to the fried tapes world; the casserole stews also did it, like the madrilenian іcallos" or the Almagro's aubergines, or the flavoured string beans. And finally, the secular recipes like the potato's tortilla, the codfish'doughnuts, croquets and escabeches remain obligatory at this time of the day that, if accompanied by any salad, could perfectly replace a complete lunch.

Today it has to be added to those traditional snacks, the new ones that appeared, some of them reserved only to be tasted on a properly dressed-up table, like the іpaella" or the stewed potatoes with meat; and others from foreign recipes that finally ended up into our tapes world like smoked salmon, pate or caviar, vegetables spring rolls, the smoked fish from the Northern countries, the German sausages, the Swiss melted cheese and cakes or middle-Europe pate.
The art of eating tapes can overtake lunch or dinner if quantity or variety of tapes is enough to satisfy the appetite.

But, without any doubt, the most singular aspect of the іtapeo" resides in its collective character and the fact that companions at table assume the still position in this minisnack to which is wanted to give, paradoxically, an informal ritual.

The elegance of the tapeo, the aesthetic of the rite, resides in a sort of indifference demonstration to the table and the chair, and even to the food that, although delicate and tasty, is eaten standing on foot and in minimum proportions, rejecting for this occasion the verb іto eat" in order to use іto itch" that belongs to the world of birds.

Speech and gesture is given priority in the іtapeo". There is no need of demonstration of neither gluttony nor materiality. The art of eating on foot has almost sacramental appearances.
The іtapes" are a very characteristic part of the Spanish cooking tradition that seemed hard to be transferred or exported to other cultures, but it has become popular anywhere in the world.

Why not! The tapeo would be, without a doubt, the best fast food formula if it was not required time and a break long enough to practice with Spanish elegance the art of eating on foot.